A laminate sheet material suitable for use as imitation leather products in the production of shoes, handbags and the like has been prepared by a number of various techniques. Such imitation leather-like material should have good abrasion and gouge resistance in addition to good hand, drape and physical properties. An additional and important property which is most desirable is the ability of the material to permit the passage of moisture vapor; that is, to be breathable, and thus to duplicate the qualities of natural leather.
Imitation leather materials have been prepared by casting a thin film of a flexible urethane resin polymer onto the surface of a napped and sheared fabric sheet. However, there are several problems associated with the production and use of such imitation leather products, including the nonuniformity of the napped surface and the presence of surface whiskers on the napped surface which tend to protrude through the thin resin film.
Imitation leather products have also employed as a base sheet material a nonwoven material of polyester, rayon or nylon, or blends thereof, such as material prepared on typical carding machines wherein the fabrics are laid down in an overlapping manner and needle-punched and saturated with a binder material to hold the fabrics in place. Often the material is then split to obtain the nonwoven material used as a base sheet. Such nonwoven fabric material often contains high amounts of from about 50 to 60% of a nitrile rubber binder, the balance of the sheet comprising the nonwoven fibers. Such nonwoven fiber sheet materials are expensive, and, due to the presence of a high amount of the binder material, often do not present good drape, hand or shoe-making properties to the resulting laminate product.
Such nonwoven materials also have been employed with a thin foam layer and a thin urethane resin skin layer on the foam layer in an attempt to provide a duplicate imitation leather material.
It is, therefore, most desirable to provide an inexpensive, flexible, improved, composite laminate material suitable for use as imitation leather material which avoids some of the difficulties and expense occasioned with prior art materials.